She went looking for him after the rest were asleep, finding him on the bridge. He was there most of the time now, brooding - when he wasn’t holed up in his bunk, brooding. Ever since…she cut off the thought. Tonight she’d have to stir up enough hurt; there was no need to add more.

She sat down on the steps next to the Wash’s chair. Mal ignored her. The tightness around his mouth might have been a slight indication to some that he didn’t want company - to Zoe it was a scream. She sighed. She’d picked her moment of deployment carefully, making sure none of the others were around. This was just about the two of them. She knew Mal like no one else in this 'verse, and she knew it was time for healing to start. What they’d run into tonight seemed like a good opening.

“Guess that was their Easter celebration back there.” He made no acknowledgement that he’d even heard her. “Just wonderin' if that was why we aborted a perfectly good job - cause of a religious holiday.” His mouth tightened even more at the word 'religious', but he still wouldn’t look at her.

“Never did quite grasp that whole thing,” she continued. “What was the concept behind Easter again - in a nutshell?”

Incredulousness had him turning his head. Her direct gaze told him she wouldn't back down. She shrugged, “In a nutshell.”

He turned back to space. He might not know where Zoe was going with something, but he knew that she wouldn’t stop ‘til she got there.

“Sacrifice, forgiveness, rebirth…love.” His words came out from gritted teeth. “Never knew you to be one for religiosity or Bible readin’, Zoe. You need a Sunday-school lesson, you best be findin' a preacher.”

“Reckon I had a few lessons. Had this sergeant once, back in the day. He was always spoutin’ off stuff out of that book, quotin’ pieces out loud during a battle, prayin’ for all of us.

But it wa’n’t the words so much that I took note of. I figure it was the doin’ that caught my interest. Doin’ for the wounded, sayin’ a cheerful word where it was needed, doin’ without food and blankets cause others had a more powerful urgency. All done in the name of that one that was bein’ celebrated back there at that church.

Mal’s hands tightened on the chair arms, snatches of the music from the service running through his head.

Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain.

‘Just like bein’ back on Shadow.’ The thought had hit him so hard that he’d stopped dead in his tracks, memories of the past so clear he could hear his mother’s and the ranch hands’ voices. And for one second, just one tiny second, he had wanted to be in that church so badly that he'd ached all over.

Holy, holy, holy your praises we proclaim.

But those people were all dead, and that life held nothing but memories.

Thank you for your mercy and spirit of rebirth.

And the God he’d worshipped had forsaken him; or maybe it’d been him that done the forsakin’ - it had been so long he couldn’t really remember which.

Glory, strength, and honor -

Zoe’s voice brought him back to the present.

“Reason I was askin’…thought maybe that took you back a ways. Thought maybe we walked away cause somethin’ there might a hit a nerve.”

“Holiday had nothin’ to do with it, Zo,” he lied. He felt like all he ever did any more was lie. “I can take shiny coin from them as is celebratin’ as well as them that ain’t. I just got a bad feelin’ was all.”

“You seem to be havin’ a lot of bad feelin’s lately. Third job this month we’ve backed out on. Jayne’s getting’ all manner of pissed off with our lack of work.”

“Jayne don’t like our methods, he’s welcome to take his leave.”

“I guess it was the forgiveness part that I was tryin’ to remember back there.”

He turned then, fists clenched, nearly snarling – not even for her would he do this.

“Tzao-gao, Zoe, what are you gettin’ at? I got exactly no time for messin’ around with your conundrums right now. You got somethin’ to say, then you lay it on the table.”

He wasn’t prepared. Nothing would have ever prepared him.

“I forgive you, Mal.” She looked him right in the eye when she said it. She saw what it did to him before he spun away from her. “I forgive you, Wash would forgive you if he was here – he’d rag you about it somethin' awful - but he’d forgive you, and I know the Shepherd did even ‘fore he died. I think it’s time for you to be forgivin' yourself - and maybe time for you to be forgivin' God for lettin’ you down out there in that valley. Way I see it, if he could do what he did on that cross for you, the least you can do is forgive him.”

“Zoe…” His breath hitched and burned in his throat. He couldn’t think for the pain. All he wanted to do was punch something until his hands bled, until his fingers broke: he thought that might dull the pain that was cutting through his heart like a scalpel. She knew him better than anyone. Didn’t she know he could never forgive himself?

“Mal, I’m not sayin’ this to hurt you.” She laid a quiet hand on his knee even though touching was something they rarely did. “But things have changed for us – maybe more now than they did back when the war was over. We’re floatin’ without a course – lost - more lost than we ever been. I think before we go much further, you’re goin' need a way.”

“Don’t you mean a plan?” he ground out.

Her lips curved with affection. “Sir, don’t take this wrong, but your plans ain’t exactly ever worked out. We need to mobilize, think about the future.” Her hand barely brushed over her belly, but it was enough for them.

A baby. Wash’s baby. Now Serenity’s baby. Well now, that did change the landscape a bit.

“I think about the future.”

“Any more’n the next day, the next job?”

“Since you’re so all fired about the Good Book, Zoe, you might be interested to know that it says we ain’t promised a tomorrow. And I’m all manner of confused as to why you’re bringin’ this up now. Can distinctly remember you tellin’ me way back when that you’d never read the Bible and you had no understandin’ of what it might say.”

“Well, you’re right enough about that I reckon. God workin’ in mysterious ways and all…it puzzles me some. Like that man that lost every last thing he had – his family, his home, his land, his hope – and his God givin’ it back, a little at a time, a piece here and there. Gave him another family, found him another home, gave him back his life until he was nearly back to whole. I’d think a man like that would be grateful and want to start fresh, get back to the right way.”

Mal responded unconsciously, still reeling from her earlier words.

“No reason God shouldn’t have gave Job back his life. Job was a good man. He was livin’ best he knew how. Just got caught up in a battle that he didn’t have much say in. Did the best he could conjure at the time. I reckon there’s some that woulda done worse.”

Zoe stood, draping a scuffed silver cross with a broken chain on the display in front of him.

“'Spect you’re right about him bein’ a good man, Sir, but I wasn’t talkin’ about Job.”

As she walked away he picked up the cross and raised his hand to throw it into the trash. Pictures flashed through his mind so fast that he couldn’t focus on one: Zoe, Serenity, Kaylee, Wash, Inara, River, Jayne, Shepherd Book, Simon, and a baby. One after another until his hand curled into a fist around the cross and his heart started to beat so hard he thought it might come out of his chest.

Thank you for your mercy and spirit of rebirth.

He spoke out loud in a hoarse, rusty voice, the habit re-emerging from his past.

“Guess You’ve been around all along, waitin’ for me to get over this mad spell. Well, just so You know, I ain’t done bein’ mad – not by a long shot. We still got issues, You and me. I’ve even come to like this new life, shiny crime and all. Well, the crime not so much, but life on Serenity, it ain’t a bad one. But a baby, well, that does make a body take stock of where they are and where they might be goin’. Reckon I’ve done things I wouldn’t want him to know about, may still have to do things to keep my crew safe.”

His heart beat slowed, and a calm seemed to envelop him.

“Just want You to know I ain’t promisin’ nothin’,” he murmured just before he slipped into his first restful sleep since Miranda, the cross still clutched in his hand.